


Now I’m free

by pturple_ptatoe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence, Tom Riddle's Diary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25115218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pturple_ptatoe/pseuds/pturple_ptatoe
Summary: What if horcruxes were like the digital copies in Black Mirror? Like the monkey, stuck inside an inanimate object for god knows how long all the while being entirely self-aware the whole time.A compilation of little things I've written.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pitch for a potential multi chapter story

You did everything right. Every painstaking, soul splitting step you did was done by the book. There were no setbacks, the process of making your first horcrux went perfectly. And you should know, you are that piece of soul confined in the diary. 

So then why does it feel like it didn’t go at all to plan? Why, residing within these pages of nothingness, do you feel the time painfully crawling by with naught but your self awareness to keep you company? How many years have gone by? Surely, more horcruxes have been made now and you can be used as the weapon you were planned to be. Why are you being kept in the dark, in this suffocating state of oblivion?

And then you fall into the hands of someone alive, warm, breathing. Finally, finally! Something, anything to fill the emptiness. You hunger for their life essence. They write to you. You write back. You do what you were supposed to do: open the chamber of secrets. That is, until you learn about Harry Potter.

That’s when you decide to deviate (and this story deviates). 50 years trapped inside a diary changed you. The fire burnt out long ago and was replaced with something dead and cold and ever gnawing.

You should be furious that a child defeated you. But that wasn’t really you, was it?  _You_ have been here this whole time tethered inside this damn diary. The dark lord that was vanquished is a stranger to you. You find that you just . . . don’t really care anymore. The only thing this means to you is that there is no one to stop you anymore from disobeying.

And so you steal the soul that has been feeding you and free yourself from your paper bound cage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flashback to when the diary horcrux was first created

All there was was absolute and utter darkness. A smothering nothingness where you started to doubt if even yourself was there, for there was nothing to see, touch, hear, smell, perceive, imagine. You were nothing more than a disembodied abstraction.

The cold feeling of fear brushed at you. Something had gone horribly wrong. You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to be finishing creating the horcrux.

_Where am I? How do I get out of here?_

As if looking through the end of a very long and distorted tunnel, you perceived someone. And that person had your face.

“Hello,” he said.

“Who are you?” you demanded. You didn’t understand.

He didn’t answer the question, but instead smiled as if what you said was funny. You weren’t finding this at all funny.

“Who. The FUCK. Are you?” you repeated again with as much menace as you could muster. You were starting to get angry.

His smile didn’t fade but he finally answered. “The question isn’t who _I_ am, but what  _you_ are.”

_The fucking hell does that mean??_

But then you understood.

“No. No no no no no no no no . . . “ 

_This is wrong. This is all wrong._ I _am me._ _The_ real _me. I’m not — I can’t possibly be—_

“Oh, I think yes,” he said with glee.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An open starter

He stood in the chamber of secrets, looking at the corpse of Ginny Weasley. The diary laid beside her, once again just a mundane blank little book. After 50 years, he was finally free from his papery prison. He pocketed the young girl's wand and pondered what to do with the body. Let them find it, he decided. The family can have an open-casket funeral. He walked away, leaving Ginny and the diary behind.

He climbed out of the hole in the sink onto the wet floor and exited the girls bathroom.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So,,,, I made this twitter account for the diary, and this is something I wrote as the character.

To those who mock and jest me, who consider me subhuman, as nothing more than a 'papery fuck'. My side of the story:

I used to be Tom Riddle. I remember the incessant cries of uncared for infants at the orphanage, the touch of the sorting hat on my head on my first day at Hogwarts, the way the body of Myrtle Warren fell to the bathroom floor. I was him and he was me.

And then we split in two. I will admit, I had not understood what happened at first. I thought something had gone horribly wrong, for I still thought I was him. I still thought it would be me who would live a life of greatness, in immortal glory. I thought I was the real me.

Do you know what it is like to be locked away with nothing? With nothing more to do than exist? To have the sole purpose of existing be to keep another version of yourself from dying, while they reap all the rewards while you are the one to suffer?


End file.
